Abortion foes work to expand informed-consent laws
Activists on the other side say the sort of information mandated for women amounts to a misleading scare tactic.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
April 12, 2007

One of the most intense battlegrounds in the abortion debate these days revolves around a simple question: What do women need to know before they terminate a pregnancy?

South Dakota lawmakers want to compel doctors — under penalty of a month in jail — to tell women that the abortion they seek will kill a "whole, separate, unique, living human being."

South Carolina is on the verge of requiring that a woman review ultrasound images of her fetus with a physician before consenting to end a pregnancy. In Mississippi, a woman must be given a chance to listen in as the abortion doctor checks the fetal heartbeat. the rest